Author B.K. Stevens shared her thoughts on Jane Ciardi in her interview in The Digest Enthusiast book six, excerpted below:
“My first novel was Interpretation of Murder, published by Black Opal Books in 2015. That novel has a tie to AHMM, too: The protagonist was introduced in a 2010 story that won a Derringer—or, to be more precise, half a Derringer (it was a tie). The protagonist, Jane Ciardi, is an American Sign Language interpreter who takes a freelance job from a Cleveland private detective and promptly gets drawn into dangers, ethical dilemmas, romantic entanglements, and the other sorts of challenges amateur sleuths tend to encounter. I think the novel’s a solidly constructed, satisfying whodunit, I think it’s got plenty of humor, and I hope it offers readers some insights into deaf culture and sign language interpreting. Our older daughter, Sarah, is a nationally certified ASL interpreter—she’s the one who first suggested that I try using an interpreter as a protagonist in a mystery—and our younger daughter, Rachel, has serious hearing loss. So hearing-related issues are important to our family. My husband, a fifth-degree black belt, contributed by choreographing the action scenes—the novel’s a true family effort. And it’s set in my favorite city, Cleveland. It hasn’t burned up the best seller lists, but I’m proud of it.”
